Total pages in book: 210
Estimated words: 200837 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1004(@200wpm)___ 803(@250wpm)___ 669(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 200837 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1004(@200wpm)___ 803(@250wpm)___ 669(@300wpm)
Part of me is kinda pissed that Mitchell and Jeyk took it upon themselves to make a promise like that, but another part—a bigger part—is grateful that they’re just acting like they normally would around me. Like I’m not the new Extraction Master. Like I don’t now live in a secret… palace. Because that’s what this place is. It’s not an office. It’s a fucking palace. And when I take all those sheets off the furniture on the lower levels, it’s probably gonna be something spectacular.
“Thanks,” I say, after a few moments of silence. “For… showing up.”
They both just shrug.
I’ve been friends with these men since we were boys. As the Tau City Extraction Master my father was what amounts to a king in this town, but both Mitchell and Jeyk come from good, rich families too and they grew up in the Extraction District as well. The three of us have been nearly inseparable since we were six years old.
We all started out as engineers. That’s what most young, respectable men from up-city become because engineers work with the spark in all kinds of different ways. These days Jeyk is working in the Canal District, I’ve been working here in the Extraction District, and Mitch was offered a stipend to study bio-spark. So he stayed in school and has been… well, I don’t actually know what he’s been doing. He tells us things, I just usually stop listening one or two sentences in because it makes no sense.
I turn my head to look at them. “Did you guys see Clara?”
Jeyk sighs. “Not since last night. She was a mess. Tried to cross the bridge and get over here. She even slapped a Matron.”
I nod. “I saw it. Even from all the way up here, I could see the cyan-blue light.”
“Yeah. She left a perfect imprint of her hand in blue spark on Matron Bell’s cheek.” Mitch chuckles.
“It’s not funny, Mitch. That’s a major demerit.”
Jeyk steps in front of me, focusing my attention on him. We stand mostly eye to eye, and that’s what I’m looking at when he speaks—his crazy amber eyes. “No one cared, Finn. Nothing’s gonna happen about it because a few seconds later the bells rang.”
“Yep. They sedated her, the bells rang, and they carried her away.” Mitchell is still looking out the windows.
Jeyk turns back to the view, joining Mitch. And then it just feels inevitable that I do the same.
My father loved Clara. He never said he played favorites for her when it came to the Maidens, but he did. I know he did. He chose her as a Maiden so she could pull herself up without my help through marriage. He made her number nine so she would never have to worry about being called into that tower.
And isn’t it a little bit ironic that the night he dies is the night those bells ring? Which makes it the very same night that Clara Birch becomes the next Maiden up?
Is that why they killed him? Because he refused to do something he was told to do in regards to Clara?
I’ll probably never know that. Unless we find the murderer and get a confession. Which seems very unlikely after the talk the Extraction Council gave me yesterday afternoon.
Mitchell sighs loudly, then turns away from the window and starts walking back to the stairs. “Let’s go, Finn.”
He’s gonna be my number one, I realize. Because he’s not afraid of me. Not afraid of telling me no or of ordering me around when it’s in my best interest. Mitch is gonna stand at this door every day, guarding me from anyone and everything, until I die.
I don’t think he knows this yet, but I do.
Jeyk will be who I will turn to when I have questions. He’s smart. Way smarter than me and smarter than Mitch too, even though he wasn’t offered a stipend to study bio-spark. He’s more than a good spark engineer, he’s a great spark engineer. Jeyk knows everything about Tau City. He understands the inner workings. His mind is filled with schematics. Courses of action and predictive analyses. He is strategic, almost to a fault, and will always look me in the eyes when he gives his opinion, even when I haven’t asked for it.
I’m not alone. I have friends. Good friends.
Loyal friends who will stand by me, no matter what.
It is their duty now.
But I owe them something in return. Not just loyalty, but leadership.
Leaders don’t hide from their duties. They steer the ship. They guide it through rocky waters. They deliver it to safe harbors. They don’t lock themselves in their office so they can be sullen and petulant.
So I go downstairs and get into the boat that will deliver us to my father’s funeral pyre.
CHAPTER NINE
Oh, how they howled. All night long. Just three women. But three is more than enough to make those anguished screams that echoed through the dorms last night.